In today's "less than surprising data point" category, the clear winner is Gallup's analysis of people's ever increasing distrust in the mass media. From 46% in 1998, the percentage of people who indicate they have "not very much/none at all" trust in mass media has grown to a stunning 57% currently. This is an all time record, as the general public perception toward the MSM has flipped over the past decade. Is it becoming increasingly more difficult to lie to the average American? In this time of unprecedented economic upheaval, where the political regime depends on just how far any given administration's lies can penetrate amongst the broader population, this may well become the most critical factor in determining policy for the future. And with ever increasing alternatives of non-traditional media, could the legacy ad-supported media model, which by definition is one which espouses the status quo, be doomed precisely by the slow but steady education of the average American, who intuitively realizes that nearly every "fact" appearing in the media, especially that supported by any given political party, is a lie?

For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have
little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully,
accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one
percentage point.

Gallup's annual update on trust in the mass media finds Americans'
views entrenched -- with a record-high 57% expressing little to no trust
in the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly, and 63%
perceiving bias in one direction or the other. At the same time, the
steady nature of these views stands in contrast to Americans' views of the three branches of government, which are all down sharply this year. Thus, in an environment in which few institutions elicit high levels of trust, it appears the media are neither gaining nor losing significant ground -- but are just managing to hold steady.

Which brings us to CNBC. If the above study is indeed correct, one would correctly guess that the viewership of the station once known for fair and objective analysis and breaking news reporting, and has now devolved to nothing more than the butt of jokes on financial media propaganda, should have plunged, even as the market remains as volatile as ever, with the VIX currently trading at levels not seen since the March highs. As the chart below shows, using data compiled from Nielsen, focusing on the ad revenue-critical target demo, this is in fact the case.

For sampling purposes we have picked three key segments: the Business Day section, Closing Bell, and, of course, Mad Money. As is self-evident, since the market crash, broad CNBC viewership has plunged by more than half, while shows like that anchored by Jim Cramer, whose only purpose is to get as many naive, "dumb money" viewers invested in the market at any given moment to facilitate the offloading of stock by hedge funds and other asset managers, have lost over two thirds of their historical viewership. Of course another explanation is that with the ever declining interest in the broader public in all matters financial, CNBC is meterly a byproduct of an audience that is increasingly aware it is being taken for the proverbial ride, and just refuses to "tune in." And since it is now CNBC's sworn role to protect the status quo and to lie daily that none of the all too obviously horrendous things in the economy are taking place, the cable station's very survival is now in question. It appears the only hope the administration, and its propaganda tentacles such as NBC Universal/CNBC have of regaining viewership, is the ceaseless dumbing down of America, or the return of credibility of the Mainstream Media itself. Alas, as the Gallup data has demonstrated, this is not only happening, but precisely the inverse is transpiring.

Which brings us to a third point: the alterantive media world, which includes blogs, has never had such a unique opportunity to strike out at the legacy regime. Yet unfortunately, being populated by egos larger than life, who would rather engage in pissing contests among each other than focusing on the one true enemy, and lauding fair market capitalism everywhere, except when it affects their own business model, the blogosphere has demonstrated a level of amateur naivete which will forever prevent its ascent over legacy media forms.

Which is truly unfortunate, because it is only a matter of time before the virus of awareness, that will soon wipe out such propaganda anachronisms as CNBC, goes airborne and eliminates even the non-traditional media outlets. And instead of responding with the required cohesion at this most critical time, various alternative media will instead revel in their own pompous insecurity and stand on the sidelines as this once in a lifetime historic opportunity passes them by, and one by one (at least the worthy ones) are subsumed by precisely the very same old model that they pretend to rebel against, the recent acquisition of TechCrunch by AOL being just the first of many examples.

By all rights, nearly every broadcast station in the US should lose it's license...because they fail to fulfill their mandate of public service, especially in the sense as a foil to the government/special interests.

I would never turn off the television. I use it as a way to teach my kids how to develop critical thinking skills and challenge what is routinely put in front of them every day. They are now understanding how the mass media distorts reality. Plus, for me, I like to hear what the enemy is saying.

You and yours will be effected in a negative way. Too much money, too much time has been put into how to warp your mind using the box for you to remain immune.

Do yourself and your family a favor. Just turn it off.

I mean if you had a leaky sewer pipe dumping effluent into your family's living room, would you all just continue to queue up on the couch as usual? I'm afraid that for too too many fellow Americans, the sad answer is a resounding "Yes".

FYI, I used to do tech work for media research entities. Suvey focus group. Blast focus group with effects. Survey focus group. Crunch stats. Tweak content of blast. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I agree that CNBC is less interesting every day; I put it on with the sound off so I can watch the ticker.

But really - the Gallup poll? Those things generally have a margin of error of 2-3%, depending on how many people are sampled. This poll looks like noise about an average. The true trend may only be up 1-2%, which given all the scandals and failures is highly possible.

I guess rednecks haven't heard of closed captioning. I keep it on all the time, so I can follow what's going on during phone calls. I flick back to CNBC during commercials.

Yesterday, Beaker Neale was going on about how texting while driving is safe, using statistics in a way that would make a freshman blush, such as quoting the drop in deaths per mile driven in the US from 1950 to 2005, ignoring that during that time, the interstates were introduced, disc brakes and radial tires became common, seatbelt use became mandatory, airbags were installed, crumple zones were introduced, antilock braking systems were invented, and, oh yes, drunk driving was reduced significantly. If that's the quality of analysis on CNBC, I'll leave the sound off.

The MSM in America does not report news, but rather it creates a narrative that fits in with the concept of the "American way of life", which is based upon the illusion of freedom, the joys of consumerism and the idea that this way of existing is superior to any other in history.

The crisis for MSM is they have promoted a line which has increasingly diverged from the reality on the ground, and into this gap has come the wonders of the internet. Without the alternative media, more people would just buy the official story and assume their lives were just different to "the norm", but with it, more people are prepared to call bullshit.

It is publicly available knowledge that the government can require the MSM to report certain stories (whether true or not) and bury others. This does serve a purpose, in extremis, but it is my opinion that the Bush II cabal abused this during the Iraq invasion to such a degree that they killed it. Maybe in comparison to the lies told during Vietnam for example, there was nothing exceptional in what they did, but there was no internet during the Vietnam war and therefore it was far easier to control the narrative.

Personally, I see the loss of trust as a great sign. It is a sign America is growing up and America must have a more honest media in order to have a healthy democracy.

'fraid I have to wave away this anonymous junk - yours is a thought-full post Man, and demonstrates independent thought. . .

that "narrative" you write of is so pervasive that most people believe it to be the only "reality" out there. . . it's what keeps the TV on in the background, or on with sound turned down, it's what keeps some looking at the screens while "rubbing one out," it's company when people are alone, and distracting when with others. .

it's why even when using the much lauded internet, which has almost endless points-of-view, people still hit the same sources of "news" & body stimulates, because that is their limited reality, and anything outside of those narrow-fed definitions must be "conspiracy theory" or red team/blue team flag waving or not "fill in the blank" enough to pay attention to. . .

if your mind is trained to see a single "reality" as the only one out there, you are ripe for the dissonance of a false flag, a mind trauma is always waiting in the wings to shock 'n' awe you out of stupor, and narrow-minded thinking. . .

I too see the loss of trust as essential, as a step closer to maturity. . . parents lie about santa claus/tooth fairy/storks, et al - it's acceptable to keep immaturity from the truths until appropriate. . . at some point one needs to wake up to how things are, to know you are responsible for your own reality, not the gov't or any of its allies. . .

When we have another financial meltdown the viewership of CNBC will rocket. That's just the way it works. It's not interesting until something hits the fan. Doesn't any viewer graphing show that? Nothing happens to change things until there is no other way out but change.

I miss the beaker jokes. I'd much prefer the meep meep to "bitchez" thing. The bitchez thing was funny when chumba would say it and then rip someone a new one for doubting gold in anyway elsewhere on the same post. It was magical.

Love the info, especially the charts! However, I must disagree regarding your assessment of the blogosphere. Yes, there are lots of stupids and overlarge egos, and there is plenty of old money that would love to see the amateurs dry up and blow away...but! There are lots of very smart people trying to find out what's *really* going on, and that's a market. You want a free market? You got one on the intertubes...even if the pay isn't much more than a job well done. Sometimes the pulic service is enough of a reward.

It's a helluva lot faster to read than to watch/listen. Much easier to save useful info (bookmarks, copy/paste, email links). Much easier to skip over unwanted info. Much more productive, for the time invested.

Eyeballs = ad revenues. Useful, frequently-updated sites have eyeballs. ZH is outstanding in providing fresh stories throughout the day. I was glued to it on flash-crash day. Yes, there is definitely a market.

While I have nothing but disdain for the programming and commentary on CNBC, your bar charts would present a fairer picture of viewership trends if data for the pre-crash period were also included. One could imagine a scenario where viewership spiked and is now returning to pre-crash levels. That might not be the correct scenario and you may indeed be accurate in your assessment, but more historical data would lend better clarity to the picture.

Not to be elitist, but I think it is safe to say that most of us here on ZH are rather more intellegent than the average. A person of "average" intelligence, nowadays in the USA, is actually rather dumbed-down and numb to the reality of our political and financial situation. Now remember: HALF of all those out there are LESS intelligent than that!

"In this time of unprecedented economic upheaval, where the political regime depends on how far any administration's lies can penetrate amongst the broader population,..." Tyler, what would we do without you?

Erin: And now we would like to take a brief moment to thank our many friends(?) at zero hedge for their generosityMark: Yea guys, you did us solid. And I'm glad you sent me a "Gold, bitches!" coffee mug instead of...well, you know

If one looks at the major share holders of the media conglomerates, it's pretty easy to see why the MSM shills, lies, and omits. They try desperately to stay on narratives that are favorable to their masters. The internet is like holding a mirror up to a vampire - the MSM bears no reflection. It's all very Soviet Union-ish.

Thank God for ZH and other web sites and the internet in general. It's easy to see why the government regime wants to censor and wiretap everything on the web and have a selective kill switch.

As a part-time blogger (finance and sports) I disagree with the author about the egos, etc. of the bloggers getting in the way of them making significant inroads.

I am quite certain that there are, among the many, varied blogs and websites offering financial info, some that are very good and making decent money, others that are not so good and making money and the converse of those.

The web is still growing up and it doesn't conform yet to any set criteria of measurement, which is why we get comments like those in the article which are based on anecdotal evidence at best and misguided emotion at worst. The author needs to take a stroll around the blogosphere. He might be surprised at what he might find. Lots of little niches are being filled and while the bickering and snark is often obvious and overdone, it's likely essential as the warring parties battle for turf, eyeballs and, of course, capital.

I'd venture that not only do more people trust many websites more than they do the MSM, but also that the viewership/readership numbers are tilting very much in their favor over the old media.

The problem is that we keep peeling away the layers of bullshit....and just find more layers of bullshit. Are we really just chasing our own tail? In the big picture, we have to give back everything we take, but generally most people hope to be the ones that win the lottery and actually get a little more than they give. The irony is that those who succeed, rarely win much appreciation outside the circle of those benefiting from the same pot, if that, while the ones history tends to respect where those who gave more than they took.

Nice article Tyler...CNBS sucks. I started an anti stock market media blog a month ago. It's satire and not for everyone but I am taking dead aim on the stoopid sheet we have been putting up with the last 15 years,,,read your site every day. Keep searching for the truth,

Exactly, though Macke was surely tweaked, in his message to the beak. "Don't you see, none of this is real." If they'd only followed his advice. The only thing that can save CNBS now is...topless reportittes.

I have watched the de-evolution of MSNBC. I could put up with the fund managers forever espousing the long view.

I think what pisses me off the most is that they have became political and starting carrying this regime's water. Everything is a happy day lean. Anyone with an independent or critical view, I think of Peter Schiff here, suffers the barbs ands attacks. I watch them primarily for commodity pricing now but the crew is french vanilla and bores the fuck out of me. Except for Santelli once in awhile. Btw is it just me, or does anyone else think Maria B is some sort of android?

I watched CNN "Quest means business and despite gold being at 1310 he did not mention it ONCE. haha

I flicked over to CNBC to see if they were talking about it, and as I did I caught one of the heads saying: "....and silver, which is well known as a proxy for the dollar, is going up"

Eh? WTF does that mean? Silver is going up and the dollar is going down??!!Proxy shmocksy my ass!

haha - must say I did enjoy CNBC for a minute or two. Another guy with an English accent was screaming that it is GOOD to have a weak dollar and that America is winning the economic currency war to have the weakest currency....Then it switched to some guy in the pit whose voice is soooo grating I could not bear it, so I switched off and read the latest FOFOA essay call shoeshineboy, which i am sure you have all read and digested by now :)

Tyler said: "Which brings us to a third point: the alterantive media world, which includes blogs, has never had such a unique opportunity to strike out at the legacy regime. Yet unfortunately, being populated by egos larger than life, who would rather engage in pissing contests among each other than focusing on the one true enemy, and lauding fair market capitalism everywhere, except when it affects their own business model, the blogosphere has demonstrated a level of amateur naivete which will forever prevent its ascent over legacy media forms."

The problem with the alternate media like blogs run by ZH is that they are too meshed up with Gold conspiracy guys. If left to these fools, world will only trade one thing and that is Gold. Why? Cause they can only see the mismanagement by Government. So instead of voting the government out, they will rebel and buy Gold to shut the system down. So as long as blogs can keep factual reporting with analysis, they are fine. It is only when they let their personal biases affect their opinions, that problems begin.

While I am happily sold out on a Gold rally to 1400, I am silently wishing that cartel breaks Gold to $200/ounce just to shut the bugs out a bit.

I don't think you are understanding the situation. Buying gold is not about trying to shut the system down. It is about trying to find a way to preserve savings when government and central banks can debase currency and there are few viable alternatives to preserve one's savings.

Voting the "government" out does not change the nature of governments that are granted monopolies of adjudication and security service provision. Such a system will always be an expression of political power and a magnet to those people who wish to gain advantage through monopoly adjudication or by means of monopoly "legal" force. Elections originally were an attempt to impose some free-market like constraints on an institution that by its design is inherently the antithesis of a free-market in the key "services" it is supposedly trying to provide. Those who understand the weaknesses of such a system would rather retain their "power of the purse" and voluntarily purchase their security and adjudication services from entities that are truly limited by the constraints of a genuine free market.

Your arguing on the need for people to focus on putting bad government out within the existing system is an (apparently) unconscious endorsement of a system that has amply demonstrated all over the globe in various forms a continuing pattern of empowering and maintaining tyranny. If a population could miraculously overcome the many individual weaknesses of its electoral system (things like - becoming educated on issues and candidate positions, have access to and using information and news systems that reflected actual conditions, having candidates brave enough to advocate and stick to positions that historicaly tend to get you killed, recognizing criminal and non-criminal personalities, seeing that their votes were properly counted, being impervious to propaganda by entities hostile to their basic freedoms, and most of all- as a whole becoming aware of and advocates of the basic ideas of freedom and wanting to live by voluntary exchange rather than by handouts provided by theft of wealth from those who produced it ... ) it is theoretically possible they could materially improve the problem for a while (as long as they could maintain the diligence in all those areas and actually much more you could list as necessary conditions). This is expecting quite a bit, really almost impossible to expect from people in the necessary numbers to make it work. Are you not able to see that this is in fact the situation that we face?

Actually the business model CNBS employs is working, for them- clearly the ZH demographic is not the target audience, it is the 60+ male retiree and the stay at home mom - why do you think they put fossils like Mark Haines with little cutie B-cups Burnett and former coke head party boy Kudlow bookended by two stacked hotties, Melissa and Trish - its all about the fantasy, and an occasional dollip of factual reporting. Trade like Cramer and you too can be a former retired hedge fund manager with a questionable track record that only occasionally broke the rules - its about the fantasy - ....CNBS still buries BBG and Fox, yet I'm guessing Fox is closing the gap as they and BBG have more a more attractive stable of Babes and boobies.

Investigative journalism went the way of the dodo when Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, etc went off the rails during Watergate, the last time the republic had a near death experience.

Of course, only a child (or the average American) would believe in the "objectivity" and "journalistic integrity" of anything on CNBC, but even a cretin should eventually notice that the soulless shills on that channel always and ONLY talk about what one should be buying today in terms of equities, NEVER what one should be selling! If they were really the ostensibly objective financial reporters and analysts that they claim to be, wouldn't they be discussing which stocks were losers, and which to SELL, just as much as which ones to currently buy?

Really, how can anyone long be fooled by this sham of a business channel? As far as I'm concerned, it is little more than a 10 hour-long informercial supporting Wall Street, the financial elite, and everything status-quo, including all the crimes and corruption therein.

The HD graphics on CNBC are pretty good. You have to have the mute button on of course. On a minute to minute basis there's not that much "business news." Apparently one can get sued for saying "negative things." So they stick to positive things. I've been tuned in since the mid 1990s, and their target audience appears to be retired folks in Florida. I like the Fox ticker in HD because the price of Gold flips every few seconds, which, I know, is a sign of the top.

Cramer should add some loud farts to his broadcast like that preacher on YouTube. That guy still gets thousands of hits. Might bring back a few viewers to his silly show. A dumb investor puppet who's head keeps falling off would work also.

Surely you meant "Disgust" and not "Distrust".
"Disgust" - in my book is when I have'nt turned on mt Sony Tube TV ( 20 years old) in a couple of weeks. I may even sell it - but I understand there is no market for used tube TVs these days?

Who watches tv anymore? Nothing but propaganda no matter what the issue. Either Israel-firsters goading Americans into more attacks (er, "wars"), non-stop cheerleading on "financial" channels, or trying to convince citizens they're ignorant and racist if they don't want to open borders and fork over everything they've built to invaders, all in the name a of a "multicultural paradise".

Media is the biggest problem today, next to the Fed's criminal enterprise.

Who watches tv anymore? Nothing but propaganda no matter what the issue. Either Israel-firsters goading Americans into more attacks (er, "wars"), non-stop cheerleading on "financial" channels, or trying to convince citizens they're ignorant and racist if they don't want to open borders and fork over everything they've built to invaders, all in the name a of a "multicultural paradise".

Media is the biggest problem today, next to the Fed's criminal enterprise.

DUBLIN, IRELAND, Jul 23, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. ("AIB") [NYSE: AIB] welcomes today's earlier announcements of the EU wide stress testing exercise co-ordinated by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) in cooperation with the European Central Bank and under the supervision of the Central Bank and Financial Regulator. The now published results confirm that in all scenarios tested AIB exceeds the threshold of 6% Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio agreed exclusively for the purpose of the stress testing exercise. As part of the disclosure process, AIB agreed to outline its sovereign exposures as at 31(st) March 2010 and this information is appended.

-- Allied Irish Banks plc (AIB) was subject to the 2010 EU-wide stress testing exercise coordinated by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), in cooperation with the European Central Bank (ECB), and under the supervision of The Central Bank and Financial Regulator.

-- The results of the stress suggest a buffer of 352 EUR mln of the Tier 1 capital would exist at 31 December 2011 against the threshold of 6% of Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio agreed exclusively for the purposes of this exercise.

Bloomberg - September 30, 2010

Ireland is preparing to take majority control of Allied Irish Banks Plc and pump extra cash into Anglo Irish Bank Corp., raising the cost of repairing the financial system to as much as 50 billion euros ($68 billion).

“The Irish banking system is at rock bottom today,” Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said today in a Bloomberg Television interview in Dublin.

Implication:

Major Media (almost anywhere) + Governments (almost any) = BS

(eventually something like the truth comes to light - as in today's Bloomberg report - but only when there is no alternative)

Looking from outside in from far away place. I saw TV for what it is more than 2 years ago and cut it off completely by cancelling my cable subscription a year ago. You think that US programs are BS and propaganda. Have you ever seen Latin American TV programs? With the exception of very few it is pure garbage. As a teaching tool of young minds even if it is for the purpose of critical thinking or getting to know your enemy, it does not really work. The subliminal messages do affect the unformed mind. I see it with my grand children. If you put them before TV or any moving images for that matter they go into a trance like state. In that state they watch everything without discretion and it could be a commercial on dish soap. At that moment my words don't mean a thing to them. The mesmerizing effect is just to powerful. So this brings me to the following: if most people are becoming awake, most don't trust the MSM and I can clearly see on ZH that most are very advanced in outright distrusting the government and especially its financial system. My question is: when will you folks be fed up enough to change it? If you don't who do you think will?Here where I am we have dollars too. We will need your leadership in the future when the virus spreads all the way down to this paradise. The first signs are already visible.